TOPMCL fic
by herk227
Summary: It says a lot about Clint Barton's life when getting taken over by a half-god and an alien invasion of Manhatten weren't the worst thing that happened to him that day. Takes place during that short period between the end of the Chitauri threat and Loki's and Thor's departure, when Clint learns what happened to Phil. Phlint slash established relationship. Clint&Tasha friendship.
1. Chapter 1

When the fight is over, when they've called in and the bad guy is put away somewhere safe for the time being, when they feel it's as save as it's ever going to be, then and only then SHIELD agent Barton lets the fatigue show. Usually this meant that he was somewhere remote, alone except maybe for Natasha or Phil. This time it was different. He and Nat were sitting in the middle of the rubble and ruins their last fight had left behind and they were surrounded by strangers.

They had fought alongside these people and they had saved the world together but beyond that Clint knew next to nothing about them. His tightest bonds were to Stark, whom he heard a lot about – most of it complaints and Thor, whom he once almost shot. If this were even remotely normal circumstances he would do his best to keep up the facade, maybe drop a joke or two, but right now he was so bone-deep tired that he just didn't care. They had given their everything to stop the Chitauri invasion, to stop Loki and none of them had the energy right now to do anything but eating in silence.

He absentmindedly noted that Nat avoided to look at him directly and he knew that she did it to avoid a total breakdown. Like him she was exhausted to the point where her body would betray her if she allowed for one moment of weakness and she wouldn't permit these people to see behind her walls. It would take more than a simple alien invasion for the Black Widow to open up to somebody. Clint himself avoided to think of anything right now except the food in his hand. There were a lot of things that he would have to deal with in the long run but right now he simply concentrated on the Shawarma. He would face his demons later with the help of Nat, huge amounts of alcohol and of course Phil.

Thor was the first one to speak. He had been as tired as the rest of them when they began their meal but Asgardians recuperated faster than humans and the silence felt almost unnatural to him. In Asgard great victories were celebrated with a feast and lots of talking, boasting and singing. So while Thor didn't feel like singing right now, he had to say something to break the silence.

"The Son of Coul would have been proud of this victory in his honor."

Barton watched as Stark, Banner and Rogers nodded their agreement but he only realized what he'd just heard, when Stark raised his glass, "to Phil," and downed the content with angry determination.

Clint's eyes shot towards Tasha's. Her guilty, pale expression told him everything he needed to know, yet for some perverse reason he couldn't stop himself from asking. "Coulson?"

All faces at the table turned towards him. Something had to show in his face, the way everybody looked at him with compassion in their eyes.

Tony was shocked. "No one has told you? – Shit."

Rogers reached out in a comforting gesture. "I'm sorry, Agent Barton."

Clint evaded the Captain's hand by jumping up. He didn't care for anyone's pity. He just stared at Nat for the longest moment of his life before he turned around and fled the place.

Steve was up and ready to follow Barton when a small hand on his arm stopped him. Agent Romanoff shook her head. "I'll take care of it."

Natasha found him on a pile of rubble overseeing a side alley. It wasn't his usually preferred height, but better than nothing. Most importantly it was away from the prying eyes of strangers. If the color of his face was anything to judge by he was very close to being sick but for now he held it together.

"Is it …," he swallowed unable to finish his question.

"Fury announced it while you were out." She deliberately kept her voice neutral. Phil had been her friend too.

"So he died in the attack on the Helicarrier, that I led." He could taste the bile in his mouth.

"No you idiot – you had nothing to do with it. Phil went after Loki one-on-one."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

He sounded so lost and hurt, that she put a comforting hand on his arm. "Because we needed you focused. And I couldn't risk losing you because of you doing something stupid in the fight, malenʹkiy yastreb."

Right now Clint wished for nothing more than not having survived the fight. If he had died, he would have died a hero, he would have died saving the world and he would have died not knowing that it was a world without Phil.

Tasha knew him so well that she could see the wheels turn in his head. "Don't even think about it Barton, Coulson would come back to kick us both in the ass if I let something happen to you on my watch."

"I need to see him, Nat."

"You're in no condition to fly." When she saw his determined face she added. "I'll take care of it. But you have to give me a minute to at least tell the others that we're off." He wanted to protest but she cut him off before he had even started. "You'll either wait voluntarily or I'll punch you out till I'm back."

He nodded with a clenched jaw. "Be quick."

When Natasha entered the Shawarma place she found herself confronted with four worried faces.

"Is everything alright?"

The question was so absurd that she almost laughed in his face, but Roger's genuine concern and his puppy dog eyes stopped her.

"I've worked with Phil Coulson for five years and Clint and him were already friends for three years before I even started at SHIELD – so no." She wasn't sure what stopped her from telling them the whole truth, after what happened she trusted these men with her life. But obviously she didn't trust them with her friend's heart. And a tiny part of her also insisted on respecting Phil's right on privacy. "Barton and I are going to the Helicarrier. If you want to pay your last respects you can do so tomorrow," she informed them and left without waiting for an answer.

As she stepped outside she could see Barton arguing with a lower level SHIELD agent. The man – Tasha didn't know his name – tried to keep the exchange reasonable and calm, but Clint was very close to resort to physical violence.

"I'm sorry Agent Barton, but I was ordered to help here and as long as your security clearance isn't reinstated I can't accept different orders from you."

"I'm not under anyone's influence right now and if you don't bring me to the Helicarrier right now, I'm going to..."

"I'm well aware of the fact that you are under no one's influence otherwise I would have called for backup the moment I spotted you, Sir." Natasha was actually impressed by how calm the man stayed. She wasn't sure if it was a good survival trait right at the moment, but it was a sign of a good head on his shoulders if he managed stand his ground when faced with someone as pissed as Barton. "The regulations are still quite clear, I'm to ignore any orders given by you until you are officially cleared. And I won't be threatened."

"Of course not," Natasha chimed in, "but you will listen to _my_ orders. So listen carefully, you will take that helicopter over there and you or someone else with a pilot license will fly me and Agent Barton to the Helicarrier, now."

"Yes, Ma'am." Even the most stubborn agent knew not to cross the Black Widow.

She turned to Barton. "Didn't I tell you to wait?"

He just shrugged and followed the nameless agent to the helicopter.

Clint sat down in the passenger part of the machine and put his seat-belt on, while nameless agent guy climbed into the cockpit. He felt as if he was just functioning on autopilot right now. The noise of the rotor seemed to come from far away and he was only vaguely aware of Nat sitting down next to him. She didn't try to speak to him or comfort him in any way. They had both lost Phil and she probably was the only person to really understand what this meant for him. Nothing would be able to lessen the feeling of loss he felt right now and he loved her because she didn't even pretend. The warmth of her body radiating through the fabric of her suit, pressing against his arm was the only thing that felt even remotely real and kept him at least partly anchored in the here and now.

Clint remembered the first time he had ever laid eye upon Agent Coulson. A mild mannered guy in a suit stepping out of the shadows stopping an undercover agent of SHIELD from blowing his brains out. Back then he'd told himself that he would have found a way out of that situation, that he would have somehow survived Hino's shot. Years later he knew that he would have been dead if Phil hadn't interfered. He was good but not that good and even if Hino wasn't a master shot he knew his own limits well enough to only make the shot if he was sure that he could make it.

But that wasn't the important part. Phil saved him in a far more profound way. Back in those days he'd been drifting, having lost any sense of purpose or belonging. Sooner or later he would have died taking some reckless risk or pissing off the wrong person. So the words "Mr. Barton, I've got a proposition for you," were probably the most important words anyone had ever said to him in his life.

Not that he'd made things easy for anyone. Clint had a lot of heated arguments during his first few months in SHIELD but somehow never with Phil. Phil who brought him his first SHIELD issued bow, Phil who always seemed to listen. He remembered when he thanked Anderson for the bow and the older agent had been irritated and clueless about what he was talking about. That was the moment when he realized that Coulson was different. He did spend the next couple of weeks trying to provoke him, but Phil never took the bait. He remembered beginning to spy on him just to see what the man was doing when he wasn't there listening. He didn't trust people as a rule and the fact that Coulson never gave him a reason to distrust him only put fuel in the fires of his paranoia. He stopped after hearing Coulson defend him to Agent Bridge, if the man didn't even speak bad of him behind his back but stood up to someone higher up in the command structure, then maybe just maybe he could relax a little bit around him.

He remembered the way Phil's fingers relentlessly typed away, when he worked through his paperwork and how that sound had felt so absolutely right, right from the start. As long as Phil Coulson worked on his paperwork the world was alright or at least would be again in a short while.

Now that the typing had stopped who would work on making the world a safer place, who would see to it that everything ran smoothly?

He remembered the moment he realized that he was in love with vivid clarity. It was during the debrief after Galveston. Clint had ignored Coulson's orders and as his handler Phil had ripped him a new one for not going by the book but during the official debriefing he had vehemently defended Barton's right to make the call he had. He had brought up every point Clint had to justify his decision and had successfully stopped Agent Carter from putting a black mark in his file. When the woman went into a lengthy rant about his dangerous tendencies to insubordination and had warned Agent Coulson not to let himself be dragged down by Hawkeye, he had seen something he would have thought impossible. Behind her back Phil rolled her eyes at Carter's melodramatics. He had never asked the older man if he had deliberately let Clint see this or if it was simple chance that he got a glimpse of the man behind the professional mask, but from that moment on Clint had been hopelessly lost.

And now he would never know.

He remembered Phil's warm eyes always caring. The big secret behind mild-mannered, polite Agent Coulson, the fact that he cared.

He remembered the first time he had seen Coulson cry. They had been together for a few months and it was the first time they had managed to sneak off base after assistant director Carter had been killed during a mission. They had worked and succeeded on catching the guilty and SHIELD business was back to normal. Clint hadn't especially liked the woman but Phil had known and cared for her. He would never have shown that kind of emotion on base; he was unflappable and professional, a rock in the storm they were all caught in for others to hold onto, but that night he had let Clint hold him until they both fell asleep.

He remembered Phil's soft and steady breathing when he slept, his chest the best pillow he could imagine. He remembered how annoyed he got when Phil had had a cold and the snoring kept him awake and how he chased Phil out of his own bedroom with a thrown pillow when Fury called in the middle of the night with some crisis or the other.

He would have to learn to sleep on his own again.

Clint was a mess and a part of him had always believed that he didn't deserve to be loved. He tried to keep others at a distance for their protection as much as his own. But Phil Coulson had seen through him, had known him for exactly who and what he was and yet had still for some miraculous reason decided that he loved him. They had grown from colleagues to friends. They had learned to trust each other and through some setbacks had grown even closer. And after a kick in the ass from Tasha he had found the courage to act on his massive crush and asked Phil out. A part of him had always feared that his lover would one day decide that he just wasn't worth the trouble, but Phil had stuck with him.

Stupid, stubborn Phil who had died believing Clint the enemy.

Clint blinked away unshed tears as the pilot's voice pulled him back from his memories.

"We're coming in, Ma'am." There was a short pause in which he listened to whoever was at the other end of his line. "Agent Romanoff ordered me to take her and Agent Barton to the Carrier, Ma'am. – ATA 5 minutes. – Yes Ma'am, over and out."

* * *

author's note: "malenʹkiy yastreb" means 'little hawk' in Russian - at least according to google translator, please feel free to critisize the hell out of me for using that crutch and tell me a better translation ;)

The title is an acronym, because I couldn't think of something witty and it basically just is ... well if you can tell me you get a virtual cooky.

Takes place in the same continuity as "The three SHIELD-keteers" and "The dating history of SHIELD agents"


	2. Chapter 2

When Barton jumped out of the helicopter followed directly by Agent Romanoff he was surprised to find himself face to face with the director. Fury looked like shit and usually Barton would have wondered what the man had been through during the last hours, but he just didn't have it in him to care. He planned to ignore his boss and simply walk by him but Fury stepped into his path.

"What? Are you going to stop me?" His voice was dangerously low.

Natasha stood at his shoulder, not saying a word but making her support for her friend known by standing at his side.

"Where do you think you're going Agent Barton?" Fury wasn't in the mood for dealing with any bullshit right now, the Council had worn his already thin patience down and he didn't react too well to threats at the best of times.

Nat's gently squeezing hand stopped Clint from simply punching the Director then and there. He pulled himself together enough for a halfway civilized tone. "I need to see him, Colonel."

Nick Fury lowered his gaze for a moment. "I'm afraid that's not possible right now, Barton. The doctors are still operating."

Both Natasha and Clint pulled in a sharp breath. "What?!"

"You heard me, Agent. The doctors are still operating. Experimental stuff, so no one knows if he'll pull through."

Natasha's voice was cold as a grave. "You said he died."

"And he did, died right there in my arms. But the medical response team managed to revive him. I might have exaggerated a bit, but it was necessary under the circumstances."

"Necessary?" Clint didn't know if he was going to be sick or having a hysterical laughter fit the next moment.

"To quote _your_ lover 'they need something to avenge'. Not that I think you two would have needed the additional motivation but Stark and Rogers did. I planned to call you as soon as the doctors were reasonably sure, that he makes it. No reason to put you through this emotional grinder twice."

"How are his chances?"

"Since he's still alive right now – better than when we started this conversation. Probably 60-40 in his favor. You can go to medical but don't bust in there and compromise their work."

"Understood, Sir."

Clint and Tasha had to wait for almost an hour before the doctors brought Coulson out of the operation room. Seeing Phil this vulnerable, knocked out on a table with tubes and needles stuck into him was one of the most terrifying things Clint had ever seen. But although his face was pale and sunken in and the lines around his eyes stuck out more than he had ever seen them, the attention of the medical team, the slow heaving of his chest and the steady beeping of the machines all meant that Phil was alive. Nat squeezed his hand and he responded the same way.

One of the doctors turned to speak with them as Coulson was transported into a room at IC.

"Barton, Romanoff."

"What is his prognosis?" Natasha was the one to ask the necessary questions. Clint was too terrified of the answers.

"If he wakes up in the next 3 to 6 hours, I'd say he's out of the woods. He took pretty well to the experimental treatment, but it's no guarantee. If he's not awake in 12 hours then I wouldn't count on him waking up at all. I'm sorry that I can't give you better news but the rest is up to him."

Natasha nodded. Clint couldn't help the tired smirk forming in defiance of reality. "If it's just up to him, I would count on him opening his eyes in about 2 hours."

"Is there somewhere we can wait?"

The doctor looked at them both obviously contemplating what to say. Clint knew that Nat looked like shit – at least measured by her standards – and he was sure he looked worse. Any self-respecting medical stuff would want to point them to the nearest bed, but this was SHIELD and Hawkeye and the Black Widow both had quite the reputation.

"Get yourself cleaned up: A hot shower and fresh clothes. We have some hygiene regulations here. Then you can wait outside his room for all I care. Don't get in the way or a nurse will throw you out."

He turned and left without waiting for their answer.

Forty minutes later they both sat outside Phil's room cleaned up with coffee in their hands. Nat had put unholy amounts of sugar inside both paper cups to help them stay awake. They both should be in their own beds sleeping, but this wasn't the first time either of them had stayed at a hospital bed to make sure someone else was OK before they allowed themselves to rest. Usually it would be Clint, sometimes Natasha, but it shouldn't be Phil. Phil was the one directing actions from behind. They only had sat besides his bed two times before and neither of those times had it been this bad.

Both of them refused to look away out of a primordial superstitious fear, that Coulson would die if they let go of their vigilant watch.

On his second round past them Nurse Williams stopped. He watched them critically, remembering both of them as difficult patients from previous visits to the medical department. Clint sank a little into his seat under his stern eye. The goofy looking blonde was the only nurse who ever got him to do as he was told, if necessary by dragging Phil into it and Clint respected him. He had never seen the other man looking so grim but he expected resentment from someone who had to treat the people, who had been injured in the attack he had lead. Nat hadn't told him how many agents had died because of him, but he was pretty sure, that Nurse Williams knew that figure.

"If you're keeping to the side when a nurse or doctor goes in, one of you can stay with Agent Coulson in his room."

The intensive care rooms were big enough to accommodate for one extra visitor in there.

"Are you sure?" Clint couldn't believe his luck.

"I'm pretty sure he will be glad to find one of his two favorite agents there, when he wakes up."

Right at that moment he felt like kissing Nurse Williams, especially for the confident 'when' instead of an 'if'. He looked over to Nat who told him:

"Get in, if you need something I'll be right here outside."

And then the wait began. Clint was absolutely exhausted and no matter how much he loved Phil, no matter how anxious he got, when the older man showed no signs of waking up after neither two nor three hours in the end his eyes closed by themselves. He didn't drop asleep for more than three or four minutes at a time, but he always snapped up startled – afraid that he might have missed something vital. Natasha sat outside only marginally better off than her best friend and was contemplating whether she should ask a doctor or Nurse Williams for some heavy wake-up pills or if she should just go and acquire some herself. The last option would probably be fastest and would only get her into trouble in the long run, but it also meant to leave Barton's and Clint's side.

In the middle of the night 4 hours after the end of his operation Phil Coulson opened his eyes for the first time.

Clint was at his side before his mind had even registered that Phil was awake.

Coulson's initial reaction was a shocked widening of the eyes, but after a fraction of a moment he recognized Barton's expression as exhausted, guilty and all in all obviously un-possessed. He immediately relaxed back into his pillows.

Clint took Phil's hand into his and pressed it lightly.

The next moment he was shoved aside by the doctor who had been called by the monitoring machines.

Phil was on the edge of falling asleep again but he still managed to communicate to the doc that he wanted his incubator removed. After quite the coughing fit and a few small gulps of tap water, he managed a small smile and three words in a rough voice.

"Thank you, doctor."

The woman, who had the night shift, just smiled at him and stepped back to let Barton take her place again.

Right at that moment Clint didn't care that technically only Fury and the leading staff knew about his and Phil's relationship. There was such a thing as doctor-patient confidentiality and even if she didn't respect that then to hell with it.

"I love you."

Phil's fingers pressed his hand.

There was so much Clint wanted to say to him, but everything else could wait. Phil had woken up. Phil was breathing on his own. There still was a tomorrow to take care of the rest.

"Tasha's here, too."

Phil turned his head just enough to make out her head through the window.

"You two look terrible. Get yourselves into some beds and don't come here in the next twelve hours."

Clint wanted to protest, he'd rather would have ripped his own spleen out than leaving Phil's side right now. Coulson's eyes were already closed again, he was on his way into a deep, natural sleep.

"That's an order, Barton," and when Clint thought that he was already out, he added with a tired smile, "I'm not going anywhere, so stop worrying."

* * *

author's note: The title spells out 'The obligatory post-movie Coulson lives fic" of course ;) Nurse Williams is of course a tribute to Rory Williams nurse extraordinaire and according to the TARDIS the Doctor's 'good-looking one' companion in Eleventy's run on _Doctor Who._


	3. Chapter 3

Exactly twelve hours later Clint and Tasha arrived in front of Phil's room. Not that they had spent the whole time sleeping, but after a couple of hours rest, several mugs of coffee and another hot shower they both almost felt like human beings again.

Sometime in the morning the doctor's had transferred Coulson into a larger room on the order of Director Fury. He still was on 24 hour watch and hooked onto several machines but the colonel had figured that the added work for the medical stuff was outweighed by the avoidance of having to deal with a group of Avengers who could only enter one at a time.

"How thoughtful of the boss. Phil's barely conscious and he still gets to keep the lid on the mess Fury made." The sleep hadn't helped with Barton's feelings regarding the director.

Natasha snorted. "We both know he wouldn't have it any other way, so stop complaining on his behalf."

Clint carefully and silently opened the door to Phil's room, trying his best to not wake the other man if he was asleep. Natasha slipped in behind him.

Coulson actually managed a weak smile from his place on the pillow. "Good morning."

Barton slipped into the chair next to his bed and without thinking took the other man's hand in his. He did his best to smile, to push down all the shit going on in his mind right now. Phil had enough on his plate without him adding to it.

Natasha took her place on the ledge of the bed. Her smaller build allowed her to sit down on the wide bed without disturbing the injured man. "Dobroye utro, drug. You look good."

Coulson's other hand reached over to touch Nat. "Lgun."

Clint saw the way her eyes lit up as Phil had the energy to call her a liar in her mother tongue. His own fingers intertwined with those of his lover and he gently pressed against them assuring himself, that Phil was really going to be fine.

The older man turned from Natasha to Clint. "What happened?"

Clint wasn't ready to go into emotional depth, not here at the hospital, so he kept his tone light. "The same thing that happens every time when I get myself into trouble – Agent Romanoff knocked some sense into me. Then we saved the world."

"Has anyone ever told you, your reports lack a little detail?"

Nat laughed at Phil's exaggerated sigh. "Who would have thought you'd ever complain about Barton talking too little?"

It was good to see Phil smile, even if he looked tired. Considering what he'd been through it was a miracle that he was alive let alone conscious. Clint wondered briefly about the experimental treatment Fury had mentioned yesterday but he sure as hell wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. He wanted to hug Phil, hold him tight and kiss him senseless, but the two of them had a protocol for situations like this: 'No tight hugs or kisses as long as one of them was hooked into anything in med bay' – it was a sensible guideline considering infection risks, so trust Phil to come up with it. In some of his few introspective moments Clint sometimes asked himself how fucked up their lives were that they actually needed protocols like this.

At least he could be sure that his lover would take the gentle pressure on his hand the way it was meant, channeling all the love and longing he couldn't otherwise express right now.

"Is everyone alright?"

"I doubt Thor is happy with his brother in custody and all, but no one was seriously hurt."

"You can ask them yourself once they're here," Nat added.

"They're coming?" Phil's tone was a bit weary.

"They're actually on their way. We spoke to Stark an hour ago and he promised to inform the others and bring them here. They had a right to know, Coulson." Natasha understood her friends need to rest, but she had also seen the grim determination in Stark's and Roger's face when they thought Phil dead and how they had mourned him. Even if Coulson didn't know it yet, those people had earned their place at his bedside.

"If it gets too much Nat and me will have them out of here faster than you can say 'Stark's a pain in my ass'," Clint promised.

Phil smiled. No one but the three of them were here so he felt safe enough to say the words. "I love you."

The effect this had on Barton was enormous. Phil was a private person and a man of few words so it wasn't something he said out loud often and now he could see the metaphorical sunrise in Clint's face.

Before the archer could answer his lover he noticed a slight shift in Natasha's position. "They're here," she informed them.

If he hadn't been concentrating so hard on Phil he would have noticed the commotion outside himself, as it was he was grateful for his friends warning. He slipped his hand out of Phil's and rearranged his position, so that he was merely sitting close to the bed, leaned back instead of resting with his arms on the patient's bed. It was another one of their rules 'never let anyone see'. Tasha knew of course as did the director and anyone of security level 9 or higher should they go to the trouble of checking their files. It was widely known throughout SHIELD that Hawkeye, the Black Widow and Agent Coulson were a superb team and friends in private life but the general knowledge didn't go beyond that and they both intended to keep it that way. Their life was complicated and dangerous enough without the added discussions about favoritism and the potential danger of their enemies finding out and trying to use it against them. And the Avengers were still basically strangers.

Instead of Tony just bursting into the room, which was basically what all three of them expected, there was a gentle knock and the person(s) at the other side of the door just waited for a reaction. Clint exchanged a curious look with Nat, who shrugged and mouthed "Rogers or Banner, both have manners and at least some kind of influence on Stark."

Phil pulled his strength together and spoke up loud enough to be heard outside. "Come in."

When the door opened it was indeed Captain Rogers, who stuck his head in first. He seemed a bit lost and came in slowly until he was pushed further in by an impatient Stark. Thor and Banner were directly behind them.

"Son of Coul! I'm glad to see you alive and well my friend!"

Seeing everyone cringe at the volume of this enthusiastic greeting Bruce put a hand on the god of thunder's arm. "Thor, please – we talked about the inside voice."

The Asgardian knitted his brow for a moment before he nodded. "Aye – we did. Wasn't my voice 'inside' enough?"

"Hello." Phil's quiet voice ended a discussion before it could really start. Every face in the room turned again towards him.

"Agent – way to pull a Huckleberry Finn on us."

"It wasn't exactly my plan, but I'm glad things turned out the way they did Mr. Stark."

"As are we Agent Coulson."

Clint from his place at the sidelines wasn't sure what was more amusing, Stark's obvious attempt at nonchalance when he was clearly relieved to see a man he'd thought dead alive, Phil's refusal to let the billionaire see any emotion or Captain Roger's earnest honesty although he hardly knew the man in the bed. In the end he decided it was probably Coulson's instinctive reaction to talking to Captain America, he actually tried to stand at attention while lying down.

"Thank you, Captain Rogers."

"Just so you know Agent – once you're up and about and out of the line of fire, I'm planning on some nice little things for Fury for doing this to us."

Now this was an idea Clint could get behind, while he had to live with the lie that Coulson was dead far shorter than the others, he was easily as pissed as Stark at being lied at about this. And if he read the subtle twitch at the left corner of Natasha's mouth correctly she had an idea or three herself.

The shocking thing was that everyone else seemed to agree, too. Thor and Banner were nodding enthusiastically and Rogers at least wasn't protesting.

Trust Phil to burst this bubble. "While I appreciate the sentiment Stark, I'm pretty sure that we have enough problems on our hands without an all out war between a billionaire genius and the leader of the world's greatest organization of spies. Director Fury simply took an opportunity after Thor saw me getting stabbed."

"Are you making excuses for your boss, Coulson? Pepper cried when she got the news. Are you saying he was right about this?"

Phil shut his eyes for a moment. He really admired Pepper Potts and if there was one thing he liked about Stark it was the man's obvious devotion to the woman.

"The people I care most about in the world thought me to be dead." Clint's heart tightened at hearing Phil's words – the closest thing to a declaration of their love to strangers he had ever heard. "Does that make me happy? No. Was the Director right in making this call? Probably." Coulson's eyes bore into Stark's forcing him to see the point. "This isn't about making people happy. He did what he thought he had to, to make you all work as a team. And in the end it worked out – **you** saved the world together." He let his gaze wander from one to the other.

"We would have fought side by side to stop my brother even without his deceit," Thor declared.

"Maybe – we'll never know. But even if that's true, do you really want to hate a man because of one decision he made in the heat of the battle to save the world?" Coulson sighed. "I've known the director for years now and while I may not agree with every decision he's made, I don't think making this call has been a mistake."

Rogers was the first one to nod. "I still think we should be having a word with him, but you're right. It was his call to make."

Stark turned to him shock visible in his face. "You're saying he was right?"

"I'm saying we should ensure that in the future it isn't his call what to tell _our_ team."

They spent the next hour or so together in Coulson's room talking. It starts with Tony babbling about the amount of flowers and episodes of Supernanny SHIELD stopped him from bringing in and quickly becomes a boasting fest between him and Thor about how they beat the Chitauri invasion. Since they don't know him Nat and Phil are the only ones to register the fact that Clint doesn't join in as something unusual.

After everything that happened Clint simply doesn't feel like boasting and maybe, just maybe, it's a sign of the fact that he wants to like these people, that he doesn't put up the mask of Hawkeye – bad-ass and loudmouth extraordinaire despite his feelings.

Nat relaxes against Banner as the physicist joins in with one or two deadpan observations about Stark. The man has issues and he almost killed Tasha during the attack on the Helicarrier. Clint decides that he has to ask her later if she did this just to put him at ease or if she really feels a connection to the scientist.

Rogers smiles with them but stays more or less quiet. Clint gets the impression, that outside the field of battle Steve is rather shy by nature. It's hard to combine this thoughtful man before him with the war hero image Coulson has admired all these years. On the other hand it's not so hard anymore if he thinks back to the way Rogers lead them into battle. Somehow this quiet, nice side makes him all the more fitting to be Phil's childhood hero.

Stark makes a video call to Pepper, to let his fiancee talk to Phil and see for herself that her friend is alright. Coulson is genuinely pleased to talk to her and they make a date for her to visit him later.

Rogers promises to organize a new set of cards for Phil and sign them. That's actually the first time Coulson seems to be upset, when he learns that the director has ruined his set of trading cards and Clint can't shake the feeling that their boss will have to do some groveling later, even if it's not about the whole 'death' thing.

Thor explains that as soon as they're done here he will take the Tesseract and Loki back with him to Asgard. Phil heavily approves of this and tells Thor as much. "Some things are just too dangerous to be left lying around here."

Banner tells them that he will accept Tony's invitation to do research at the Stark tower, so he will be in touch. This provokes an approving smile of Nat and the declaration of Stark that actually he's decided to change the tower's name.

"It's fate really, all letters except the A fell off, so I was thinking Avenger's tower. And you're all invited to stay. We have enough room so that everyone can have their own floor and we'll have a community floor, training facilities, laboratories and a whirlpool – the home away from home. You're invited too Agent."

This took Coulson by surprise. He blinked once before answering. "Thank you, Mr. Stark. I will take your offer into seriously consideration."

* * *

author's note: "Dobroye utro, drug" = "Good morning, friend" "Lgun" ="Liar" And Yes I think Coulson would have rules for a situation like this. Coulson has rules for everything. For now this is finished, it might get an epilogue later or maybe just quotes in other fics, who knows.


End file.
